Finding Faith in the Battle

The last few weeks have been full of traveling and processing and planning, with very little to show for it. Oh sure, we do have $200 worth of shampoo, 4 cases of diapers, and enough Taco seasoning to supply the Yakima Valley for a while all sitting in our already-cramped living room. But really, life is otherwise plugging along pretty normally. Anya's back in the routine of school, though she's had a rough time with her new teacher who doesn't want 2 nd graders looking out of the window during school hours...something about "staying on task". Ethan and Chad have a system worked out, running errands, playing on PBSkids .org, and frequenting Yakima's parks each day. Miriam finished up work at the clinic for good, so now she's down to working just 21 hours a week at the nursing home. The baby is growing and kicking and down-right doing the jig most of the day, to the kids' delight and Miriam's discomfort. Just a "normal" family, living the

Missionary candidates, who entered the interview process with us, were interested in our story as they imagined life for their kids overseas. Miriam and I talked a lot about our experience growing up in Africa and the pressures of being missionary kids. One evening, I began to talk about our family’s worst trials. We endured repeated robberies at gun point, but continued believing it was worth staying in Uganda to remain in the center of God’s will. Rebecca was one of those candidates. She said, “I remember praying for you Pumpellys in Uganda every night growing up.” Her parents had been committed prayer partners for my family during those hard years. It reminded me how critical praying is for missions to be effective and how encouraging it is to know you have been prayed for. Rebecca and her husband, Jared, were appointed as missionaries the same time we were and have become our friends. They are doing field personnel orientation in Richmond right now and will be moving to Western Eur

Following the lead of our team-members, we are looking for 12 churches who will commit to become Strategic Prayer Partners. These will be churches that have a special connection to the work going on in Malawi. If we’re scheduled to speak at your church, you’ll be hearing even more about this soon! Praise God, eight churches have already agreed to partner with us. These churches are making a 3-year commitment to pray for the ministry in Malawi and for the Pumpelly family one month out of the year. They will track our ministry updates through-out the year, but make special efforts to pray heavily for the needs of our family and the Malawi mission during their one month. By having 12 churches, the work God is doing in Malawi will be bathed in prayer year-round. We are committed to the partnership also. We will provide monthly newsletters and specific prayer needs related to ministry and family, and will provide multi-media sources as desired by the churches for use during their month o